Thanksgiving Prep

So I started my thanksgiving prep on Sunday. One of the first things I made was this golden syrup. I found several recipes on line for this. It is a product usually found in the UK. They use it for many things. Smitten Kitchen recommends it for pecan pie. I decided to try and make it because the imported version is tough to find and very expensive.

Now, thanks to Blogger my pictures are once again re-ordered. So this is a picture of an embroidery piece from the garden book.

And this is my rendition of the radish piece. This is the first of many from this book that I hope to complete. They are very detailed and beautifully done in the book.

And lastly, for now, I made some Brioche hamburger buns for our dinner last night. Recipe is from King Arthur. Not difficult, but you do need a stand mixer. They need 15-20 minutes of kneading in the mixer. Your arms would fall off. But they turned out lovely and very tasty. I put seeds on half and left half plain.

Now I need to make my list for the rest of my prep over then next few days. I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving, even if it is smaller than normal. I know that next year will be better. Talk to you soon.

Where Are You Christmas?

 I am having a tough time finding my Christmas spirit this year, as I know many of you are. Usually I am starting to plan and sew and enjoy music and movies. This year, it all feels forced. I am trying. I listen to holiday music, and think it sounds nice, but it isn't giving me the feel that it usually does. I have my list of movies to watch, but I feel kind of meh about actually sitting down to watch. I have high hopes that once I watch a couple I will feel different.

I have already bought and sent my gifts to the grand children. Many I ordered on line and just had them shipped. Why ship twice? And since they had to go all the way across the country, I wanted it done plenty early. I have never done that before.

I dug out some Christmas fabrics, and after some hemming and hawing chose some to make hexies out of.

I have an idea for a Christmas pillow for my bed. I will soon be putting my Fair Isle quilt on the bed for the season and the pillows that are there don't reflect the season at all. I still need another design for the second pillow.

I am enjoying making the pillow covers, but it still doesn't feel like Christmas to me. I need it to feel like Christmas. I look at projects from years past and they make me smile, but they don't inspire me to decorate.

I think I know what's really missing this year. And it's this...my family. I haven't seen them in over a year. The ache in my heart is huge. I am missing them growing up and we all know how quickly that happens.

So, for now, all I can do is keep trying. I will watch my movies with my husband and we will listen to lots of Christmas music. I have some twinkle lights up in my room and decorations will eventually go up elsewhere in the house. I will still miss the littles and their silliness that makes the holidays magic. And I will dream a dream of next year. And that will have to do for now. Thanks for lending me your ears.

November Penny Sampler Blocks

 I finished my November blocks for the Penny Sampler Pattern Club. Next month, in December we will tackle assembly of the whole quilt. So I wanted to share the blocks, and then the quilt so far, up on the design wall.

This is the tea cup. I did a bunch of tea cups for the last Penny sampler, and then I made a small quilt out of them for my sister for Christmas a couple of years ago. Because I had already done a lot, I decided to just do one for this quilt. I love the elegance of the cup.

And this is my mitten. I love the fabrics I chose for this. My only wish is that the top of the mitten could have had more of a curve. People who have seen this don't realize it's a mitten. But I am mostly happy with it and it was a simple block to make.

So here are all the parts hanging on the wall. It gives you a pretty good idea what the whole thing will look like. I am pretty happy with it and I love all the new blocks since the last one. They will be very different quilts. Have a lovely week.

Flying Geese and Embroidery

Now, the flying geese have absolutely nothing to do with the embroidery. But I decided to cram them both into one post. First, the flying geese. Rachel at Stitched in Color is doing a sew along of her Geesey Geesey pattern and of course, I had to join in. I have always wanted to do a flying geese quilt. This was my chance.

I saw a lovely rendition of this quilt using some of these colors. That was what grabbed my attention.

I used a no waste method of making the geese which I got from Melissa Cory at Happy Quilting. I love her method and the important thing was to make the geese the correct size.

The background, or "sky" in my quilt is made from some Kona white that I dyed in a Shibori style, using Rit dye in pearl grey. Some of them are lighter than I wanted, but over all I am happy with the way it looks in the blocks. I want to try dying again now that I have some idea of how it works.

 

I just had to chop off all the dog ears. Having them there bugs me. I need clean edges.

And yes, I worked ahead. I have started arranging them and looking at them to find the best positions for each one. I will be back soon with the finished top.

And now on to embroidery...

I found this book of embroidery vegetables that I fell in love with. I want to do a bunch of them to frame and give to my daughter. She has become quite the gardener during the pandemic.

But first, I need to finish this sampler from Rebecca at Dropcloth Samplers. It is almost finished. I have been working on this for months. Whenever I need a hand stitching project, I pick this up. I love hand stitching.

So I think that just about catches us up. Take care, and stay healthy.

A Couple of Things

 So even though I don't post much, I am always working on something here. I need to keep my hands and my brain busy. Otherwise I would go crazy. So here are a couple of things I am working on.

Remember this? It is the Scrap Happy Rails quilt from Amanda Jean's book No Scrap Left Behind. This was the day that I pin basted it.

And now it is all quilted. And on my bed. I need to take it off the bed and get a proper bunch of pictures to share. Maybe this weekend when my hubby is home. I had a plan of how I wanted to quilt this, but with the small throat of my Bernina, I couldn't make it work. So I had to change the plan. I started with all over swirls, but after a short bit, I began including some hearts instead of all loops. Then I wrote the word Love as a secret message. I ended up doing this randomly through out. I love it so much and the crinkly texture hides the secret messages.

This is a ripple blanket I am crocheting for my youngest grandson. Blogger decided to put it here in the middle of this post and I can't figure out how to move it, so here it is. Crocheting is one of the things I do to keep my hands busy.

Meanwhile, back at the quilt...I did get a couple of pictures while I was doing the actual quilting so I can share those.

This is an absolutely great quilt and a good size. I love all the quilts in Amanda Jean's book and I know there will be more in my sewing future. I promise to get some better pics and come back to share them soon.  Have a great week.

Socktober

 I decided I really wanted to document something my daughter did for me. First, let me just say she is a prolific knitter, and is very good. She has made socks for me in the past and I love the feel of hand knit socks. Especially now that I have neuropathy in my feet from chemo. The hand knit socks are loose and comfortable for my feet, when other socks are so very constricting.

When the pandemic began and we all went into lock down, she decided to use up a bunch of her yarn stash, and she secretly enrolled me in her Pandemic sock of the month club. I got the first delivery of three pair. (This is a quarterly club.) I was bowled over by this thoughtfulness. Socks are a lot of work.

It was too warm here in southern California for socks, at that time. So when the weather finally cooled, I dubbed it Socktober and wore a new pair each day to be able to send her a picture of her beautiful work in use. Here they are in all their glory...

Each pair came with a card that gave the month and

a little quip about the pandemic and it's impact on normal life.

Each pair is different and I love all the colors and the yarns she used. Some of the yarn is self striping, meaning it makes strips as you knit up. I have no idea how that works, but it's cool.

Some, like these have heel gussets and toes that contrast. These have yarn that she used for an older pair of socks and also a shawl she made for me.

I love the vibrancy of these socks.

Fall colors, and toasty warm.

Love these beauties. Mermaid socks.

Love the tops of these.

These are different, but quite lovely in blues.

And these are very interesting and bright. I love the way they almost look like two different pair of socks.  So, this was my Socktober and I loved every pair. I am still wearing a pair of hand knit socks every day. There are two more pair being made to add to the collection. I will not need to buy socks again for years, and I'm okay with that. It has been great fun to get these surprises in the mail and I love her so much for thinking of this and of me. When this stupid pandemic it over, I will have the biggest bunch of hugs to give her for all this joy.

Talk to you soon.